


I'll Never Learn

by reverse_the_jellybaby



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Sarah Jane Smith (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:28:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27398749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reverse_the_jellybaby/pseuds/reverse_the_jellybaby
Summary: [re-upload from Tumblr, circa 2013][Spoilers for Big Finish SJS: Dreamland] Haunted following Josh's death, Sarah Jane Smith must face the guilt of her actions from an unlikely source, and accept what happened on the Dauntless. Pain ensues.The song used periodically through the story is I'll Never Learn by the Shangri-Las (I was going through a 60s girl group phase), and it's a song choice I still love. Would recommend listening to it alongside reading this for extra pain.
Relationships: Sarah Jane Smith/Josh Townsend
Kudos: 6





	I'll Never Learn

**Author's Note:**

> Well hey there, internet! First time uploader here, but this ain't my first time at the rodeo. I wrote fanfiction many years ago in my Whovian phase on Tumblr (I'm talking 2012-13 here), but during the pandemic I've been feeling kind of creative, and inspired to re-upload my old stuff. Universe, bask in the pretentious glory of my teen fiction writing style. 
> 
> I originally deleted all my old fanfictions out of shame, but fuck that! I'm not ashamed! Hell, I'm still really proud of a lot of my work from back then. 
> 
> This is a re-upload of a fanfiction I wrote all the way back in 2013, when I was a small child of 18. I'm almost 26 now. Fetch me my walking stick, kids. Originally I uploaded this to Tumblr, but as I've since deleted my Tumblr, I thought I'd host them somewhere else. My writing style back then was kind of long-winded and pretentious, but this is one that I still stand by to this day. Seriously, who hurt you, teen me?
> 
> This is the original fanfiction, unchanged, embarrassing stuff left intact. I changed one word because I misquoted a line and it was driving me crazy.

_Sit here, thinkin’, thinkin’ ‘bout the happy times we used to have; now they’re gone forever…  
_  
As a child, Sarah had been told that when you lose somebody significant to you, you cry and you cry and you cry until there’s no tears left in your body. You shrivel up like a prune because of the tears you’ve shed, and you only revert back to your normal state when you accept what has happened.   
  
Of course, as an adult, she knew this to be one of Aunt Lavinia’s - bless her - tattle-tales she’d invented to explain and justify the madness of life. As an adult, she’d lost so many people that she’d moved beyond that stage and had accepted it as being integral to life. Grief was something she’d become all-too accustomed to.  
  
Stepping off the Dauntless, the space tourism flight that had proven to be fatal for her partner in crime was a blur. Nat clamoured for answers - where was Josh? What had been the ominous white light she’d been on about? What was that sound through the radio in the cockpit? She’d made the hasty guess of gunfire; Sarah had shuddered at the word. 

The staff at NASA demanded to know what the hell had happened out there, simultaneously clamouring for answers in their droves. And yet, out of the madness, she couldn’t force the words off her tongue, to explain what had happened – about the Crimson Chapter infiltrating the cockpit, the gunshot, the loss of her best friend; her lover. A simple shrug of the hand clasping her shoulder (she had no face to match to its owner) and a mumble of what she thought was, “I just want to be alone,” and she was left to her own thoughts.  
  
She hadn’t slept for three days straight – she simply sat in her armchair in her latest boudoir (no matter how many locations she’d had infiltrated by higher powers, such precious things remained constant), clutching a mug of peppermint tea that had long since become lukewarm, occasionally being roused by Nat’s hospitality. She’d kept wary of Sarah’s condition; she’d never seen her like this. The Sarah she knew would’ve kept her chin up and moved on. She wouldn’t have reverted to this state of…well; catatonia was the only plausible explanation. What made this situation unique?  
  
'Perhaps our young Mr Townsend wasn’t so expendable after all’, she pondered.  
  
***  
Light pierced through the window, infiltrating the darkness and she was blinded. She didn’t know where she was, or indeed, _when_ she was – but of course, she was used to asking that question. Her vision was distorted; it was as if she wasn’t completely there; suspended between reality and a state of non-existence, despite being able to feel the soft familiar touch of her bedspread.  
But out of the corner of her eye, there was a shadow. Judging by the silhouette, it was a man. Instead of being fearful, she felt rather curious. She called out, “hello?” and found her voice was somewhat muffled, as if hands were clasped over her ears.

  
“Our glorious leader awakens,” said the man, still lurking in the shadows.   
  
The voice was familiar to her.  
No.   
It couldn’t be!  
But he was…well, she didn’t want to think of it.  
  
Sarah had to shield her eyes to make out the unmistakeable face of Josh Townsend. Although his face was distorted by the darkness, it was undoubtedly him.   
  
“Josh!” She cried out in relief, “but…how? You were…”  
“I know."   
  
There was something strange in the inflictions in the younger man’s voice. Not a twinge of humour in sight, not a sarcastic comment thrown her way. Not even an affectionate address of 'I know you thought I was dead and gone, SJ, but here I am in one piece. I’m not a ghostie in your imagination, so don’t worry yourself, yeah?’ It was…discerning.  
  
"You left me there, Sarah.”  
“Yes, I know, but…”  
“You could’ve asked for help."   
"I couldn’t, the radio was…”  
“Oh the great Sarah Jane Smith couldn’t fix the bloody radio! Oh, how quaint, I’m ever so sorry.” His voice dripped with bitter sarcasm.  
“Look, I did everything in my power to save you. I risked life and limb to get you and I back to safety…alive.”  
“But you didn’t, Sarah _Jane_. Did you?” He snorted with derision, emphasising her second given name; a title he rarely used.   
“What do you mean?"   
"It was the same with Nat. Y'know, with the nerve gas? You were tested - it was her or them. You had a choice, and you chose wrong. You could’ve chosen her. What’s worth more to you, those you’re barely acquainted with, or your best mate?” He was beginning to lose face now; the calm measured facade beginning to slip.  
“Josh, you more than anyone know that that wasn’t my call to make! Thousands of people’s blood could’ve been on my hands if I’d have chosen Nat, and who do you think would have had to answer for that? Me. I tried my damnedest to make sure you were all safe and…” She faltered, feeling deflated.  
“Well, you couldn’t get it this time, could you?”  
“What’s wrong with you?”  
“You failed, Sarah. You lost someone. You let someone’s life fall through the cracks and now…now you’ve got someone’s blood on your hands. How does that make you feel?”  
She said nothing, and he took that as his cue to continue.  
“Yeah, makes you feel like shit, doesn’t it? Good. Maybe for once I’ll get through to you instead of this 'Sarah Jane knows best’ nonsense you always seem to uphold, and actually considering that maybe other people have emotions and vulnerabilities.”  
  
She choked back a sob at the unfathomable truth - she _had_ caused this. This was her fault; all her fault.   
  
_I’ll never learn, I’ll never learn, my eyes; they burn from sleepless crying_ …  
  
“You could’ve saved me, Sarah. You had that chance within your grasp - but you were too late. And now you’ve got to live with that.”  
  
He was utterly despondent and broken - now unable to be repaired. His careworn face was distorted in the darkness, with shining eyes boring directly into her through the one stream of light coming from the window. He looked deranged.  
  
A single tear slid down his cheek, shimmering as it caught the light.  
  
“Sarah I-”  
  
This was not happening.

She squeezed her eyes tight, wrenched them open and he was gone.

This was the third night in a row this had happened. Was it a dream, a bizarre hallucination, a vision? She couldn’t be sure. And every night she’d rolled over to her side, expecting him to be there, waiting for her as always; to be wrenched from this horrible, horrible nightmare where Josh was… _no_! It couldn’t have happened. It just…couldn’t. Her Josh, her cheeky boy, was gone.

Oh, she would kill to see his childish beam spread across his face as he registered the irritation in her expression when he addressed her as ‘SJ’; to hold him through the night, assured that he would never let her out of his sight; to kiss his forehead, to make love to him one last time. To have the satisfaction that he was here, with her. Sarah, Josh and Nat: the three musketeers, the dynamic trio, taking on the world together.   
  
_And the form takes the shape of love, and it’s real, and it’s true, and it’s you…but I wake up…_  
  
Again and again, night after night she’d have to face that hard-hitting reality.   
  
He was gone.  
He was no more.  
He was a physical being that had ceased to exist.  
He was…no, she couldn’t face it. It was too much.  
  
She hadn’t learnt the end of Josh’s final incomplete sentence, “Sarah I -” but somehow she just knew the answer.  
  
It was time.  
It was time to see things how they really were.  
She shut her eyes, and she remembered…  
  
Tiny vignettes flashed through her mind as a stream of consciousness.   
  
_Marie Samuels…SJ…keep your bloody mobile phone on…your break is for the purpose of having a cup of tea, not to grope the local gardener!_  
  
She let out a hearty laugh at that one, biting her lip and looking to the sky.   
  
_Where’s our glorious leader…here’s to crime…so you don’t mind sharing digs with a grizzly bear…I just feel more comfortable…very, very stupid you are -_ oh, that first night! The way he’d held her in the aftermath, kissed the tears off her face, rid her of her worries and woes. Oh, harmonious bliss! She was unable to withhold her smile at the memory.  
  
But nothing mattered now.  
The future was in monochrome, devoid of life, colour or adventure.  
He was…  
He was…  
The word felt like vitriol - it tasted bitter on her tongue. She couldn’t force herself to say it.  
  
He heard his roaring guffaws now; she saw the laugh lines embedded in his face, the way he’d saved her from death - the way he’d held her hand one last time on the Dauntless; held it tightly, as if he knew it would be the last thing he’d do and concocted this entire adventure, just to know that she’d be with him until the premature end.

“You remember the first time we met?” He’d murmured. His reminiscent smile shone through her glistening tears, and she’d smiled back at him, causing the teardrops to teeter on her cheeks and fall onto his shirt. The last thing he’d recalled in his life was their first meeting – the bloody idiot. She couldn’t bear it as his hand had loosened its grip and became still. She’d hunched over him and wept bitter tears across his torso.

_I’ll miss you…_

  
He was…dead.

She clasped her hand over her mouth as the truth finally washed over her, pounding her fists against the mattress and drowning her bitter weeping with the pillow. She was plagued; by guilt, by sorrow, by anguish. It was as if he was everywhere – a living reminder of what she’d caused. She saw him in the bed beside her, with that same look plastered onto her face. She saw his despondent face staring down at her in the mirror parallel to her, that lone tear in the moonlight. She saw him at the head of her bed, cold eyes boring into her.

And out of the madness, out of the darkness, she heard weeping. She scrambled out of her bed sheets and crawled to the edge of her bed. It was her, holding him on the Dauntless. She was calling his name, desperately searching for any sign of life in the younger man. She was shaking him, checking his pulse, listening for any tell-tale signs that he might live.

“It was all my fault, I was too late…could’ve saved him…” she managed to choke out.

She rubbed her eyes; the image was gone.

_I’ll never learn, my eyes; they burn from sleepless crying…_  
  
She heard his voice echoing in the darkness: “Why?”  
No…  
She screamed into the pillow.  
  
 _From sleepless crying…_


End file.
